Midvaal Tour Stage 2 - by Mike Viljoen 17 June 2011

Stage 2 - Friday 17 June - of the Midvaal Vets Tour was staged at the Midvaal race track. A crit stage of 1hr15 min plus one lap - enough to scare anybody into a coma – especially after the previous day’s excursion in the howling wind.
What was annoyingly becoming evident was the fact that:


1. The wind was going to pump - all day
2. It was dang cold!!!


So at 9am with the wind at a steady 50km/h at a comfy 5 degrees, we arrived to start our battle. We had already figured that our main competition for the day would be hard at us from the gun to try and wrestle the yellow jersey from the shoulders of our man, Andrew Reeves. Try as they did, we brought it back and made it a hard day of racing.


With two major teams going at each other, it opened the door to the few strong individuals to play off this. The result was a really exciting stage. From the gun the pace was hot so Gwyn Pine set off up the road on a solo attack. Left on his own he raced off to a sizable lead which remained unchallenged for a few laps. It soon became evident to the others that this man of legendary time trial skill was getting away and the screws were tightened. A few flat out laps followed and Gwyn was eventually pulled back into the bunch. As soon as the pack was together (groupo compacto for those that followed on twitter!), the counter attacks followed from a very active Cycle Nation.


Anthony Field-Buss (Cycle Nation) was the next to make a telling attack. The name of the game for us was to follow and sit, defend what we had and follow moves. Yours truly chased Anthony and we made a getaway. Unfortunately Anthony had ideas other than the logical “work together to get away” and attacked me a lap into our get away. Riding away at a furious pace i decided that fighting a 2 man battle was silly and slowly lost the wheel. After 3 or 4 laps i made my way back to the bunch led superbly by a snarling Emile, seeing that I was losing interest fast. After recovering we all hit the front and hunted Anthony down. It did not take us long to reel him in which again led to furious counter attacks.

Luckily for us we were all on point. Sean and Werner were the next to weather the attacks as they came one after another. Riding on this track was extremely difficult. Hitting a wall of frigid air after a long back straight broke many attempts at getaways. It did not however stop guys from trying.


The remaining 20 minutes was a furious affair with many flyers going off the front. The back straight became a hunting ground for attacks and counters and we were all kept busy chasing and chasing.


The bell rung for the final lap and all hell broke loose. The back straight was again the scene for deadly moves which we gamely covered. Unfortunately we were so attentive to Cycle Nation that we left the door wide open for Jimmy le Roux who attacked into the wind off the final s- bends. He was able to open a sizable gap and held that through to the end. Coming into the last corner we managed a small lead out for Sean and Andrew.


Sean managed to annihilate the field running close to the pit lane for a second with Anthony Field-Buss in third.

The result was that we kept the yellow and brought Sean up higher in the points standing. It was a tough, but exciting day at the track. A well fought team effort.


Photos by www.cyclenation.co.za